43 cm of freshies, Switzerland is next!

It's snowing heavily in the southern French Alps and the Italian Piedmont since yesterday. The conditions were already pretty good for the time of the year as you can see in the video above. That's about 35 cm of snow in Puy Saint Vincent. The current turned a bit more to the southeast in the Piedmont last night and as a result the precipitation moved from the French Hautes Alps to the Piedmont. The front will arrive in the south of Switzerland later today and it will get stronger and stronger.

In this forecast:

Plenty of snow for the Hautes Alps

Lots of freshies in the Piedmont

70-100 cm of freshies in Switzerland

The next storm will hit the Alps next week

Plenty of snow for the Hautes Alps

It snowed heavily in the French Hautes Alps yesterday. You can check out how much snow came down in this article. But the party is over for the moment. The current turned and warm air is hitting the southern French Alps. The current came from the south to southwest yesterday and the combination of low temperatures in the valley and the orographic cooling resulted in snowfall. But the wind and the rising temperatures on French side of the border are kicking in. The temperatures dropped on the Italian site of the border. You can check that out on the map from infoclimat below.

Temperatures rising on the French site, it's getting colder in Italy

Lots of freshies in the Piedmont

That change of the current results in intense snowfall on the Italian side of the border today. The Stau causes the temperature to drop and brings plenty of snow. Already 42 cm of snow came down near Sestrière and it's still snowing.

43 cm of freshies

The webcams say it all. They could even start the lifts in Prali and Bardonnechia at less than 1400 meters altitude.

Prali

Bardonnechia

The measuring stations show a snow cover between 20 and 40 centimeters everywhere and it's snowing still heavily. When the sun will come out on Sasturday this will be a good day for a tour around the Col d'Agnel, the Colle du Sestrière or the Col de Montgenèvre.

Lots of freshies in the Piedmont

70-100 cm of freshies in Switzerland

The front will move to the south of Switzerland today and it will snow heavily over there. Our snow maps show up to 95 centimeters of fresh snow south of St. Moritz.

The abundant snowfall is reason enough for the Swiss avalanche service to publish an avalanche forecast. They also warn (just like us) for the rising temperaturs on Friday. The most snow will come down at an altitude between 2700 and 3000 meter in that region. And that's a huge difference compared with the snow that we chased last March during our road trip through Switzerland. The first stop was in Gstaad and I never knew that you could ride such nice lines over there. For a complete report, click here.

The conditions won't be like the conditions we had in Gstaad in March. The temperature just rises to fast.

The next storm will hit the Alps next week

But there's another storm hitting the Alps in the middle of next week. This time it comes from northwest and will bring snow in those regions of the Alps where it was warm yesterday, today and tomorrow because of the Föhn. After the east and the south of the Alps, the northwest is next. Winter is definitely getting closer and closer and if we're lucky we can make some powder turns on a glacier in Switzerland or Austria next week.

Stay stoked, Morris

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